Wowhead Weekly Episode 14Wowhead Weekly is a World of Warcraft podcast with Wowhead Site Manager Perculia and Olivia, where they discuss all things Warlords of Draenor, Wowhead, and more! This week was a healing special, livestreamed on Wowhead's Twitch Channel - follow us to be notified when we stream! You can also subscribe to our YouTube Channel to see all our video content!

This week the show was a Healing Special, with healing experts and theorycrafters Hamlet and Dayani! They did touch on a little news, but the show's focus was on healing. We recently published all our Wowhead Healer Guides for Warlords of Draenor, several of which are written by Hamlet and Dayani, which you can check out below! BlizzCon Schedule and Map Announced Hamlet's Healing Calculator Dayani's healing blogRestoration Druid GuideMistweaver Monk GuideHoly Paladin GuideHealing Priests (Discipline \/ Holy) GuideRestoration Shaman Guide

This week's questions came from Twitch! Tomboyy asked "are tank healers still needed?", and Ponyonfire asked "as healers are having a rough time keeping up on heals, is DPS using defensive cooldowns more or less crucial in WoD?"

CASC Conversion in 6.0Community Manager Bashiok has posted a summary of what the conversion to CASC in 6.0 means for you. If you're looking for more information on the new file format, it was first announced back at the start of Alpha, with some more insight.

As previously announced, the Warlords of Draenor 6.0.2 pre-patch marks our transition to the new \u201cContent Addressable Storage Container\u201d (CASC) file format system. This transition is an automatic process that will occur through the Battle.net desktop app as it installs Patch 6.0.2. While it shouldn\u2019t require any action on your part, we have a few notes on the process that can help ensure a smooth install.

By default your Battle.net desktop app is set to download future patch data automatically. If you\u2019ve turned yours off we recommend re-enabling it to download the 6.0.2 patch data. It\u2019s a pretty big patch, and starting now will save you precious Iron Horde-killing time on Tuesday. Your background download settings are configurable per-game, and you can also adjust things like download speed, among other settings.

There will be one small final patch on 6.0.2 release-day that will include the last few files to install the patch. Right now we\u2019re expecting it to be around 100MB.

If you\u2019re one to leave your computer on and Battle.net desktop app running, on the morning of the patch release the install and conversion to CASC will happen automatically.

Hard drive fragmentation can slow down just about anything you do on your computer, but especially when a program needs to move around large data files, like this patch and conversion process will need to. If you haven\u2019t defragged your hard drive in a while, we recommend looking into it as a possible install-time saving preparation step. Note that defrags aren't typically necessary or recommended if using an SSD.

If you\u2019re coming back to the game and looking to reinstall from scratch, be aware that all game discs out in the world are printed using the old MPQ file format. That means that if you attempt to install from those discs after 6.0.2, the Battle.net desktop app will instead install by downloading the game. That\u2019s of course not necessarily a bad thing, especially because downloading can actually sometimes be faster than a disc install. Discs being printed for Warlords of Draenor, and for future \u201cBattle Chests\u201d, will be printed in the CASC format and they\u2019ll be able to be used to install from as before.

If you encounter any problems with the install or conversion please visit our Technical Support forum. For additional troubleshooting instructions or to speak with Blizzard support please use the Battle.net Support site.

While we've tried to ensure as speedy a conversion as possible by using most of your existing game data, this is a complex process, and depending on your hardware, hard drive fragmentation and free space, among other factors, this still may take a bit of time to complete. We hope some of these hints help cut that down even further.

Curious about CASC - can we expect the total HD space used by WoW to go down as a result of this new file format, or will it stay about the same?

Apparently it's not removing the old files, so you're going to use more space.

Not entirely accurate. As the conversion processes each MPQ, it deletes it. At the end of the conversion you should be at or around the same folder size if you've already downloaded all of the 6.0.2 data to this point, and should only need around 4GB free for the conversion itself.

Something people have noted in testing though is a lack of "garbage collection", which would cleanup redundant files after new versions are installed. This is an issue mainly in a beta environment as constant (sometimes daily) updates are released and redundant data builds up very quickly, but it isn't something that will immediately result in a larger install upon release of 6.0.2. Implementing garbage collection is something our engineers are working toward.

Blackhand Comic from the WoW Team"A master tactician, Blackhand has never been one to shy away from battle. No matter what enemies the Blackrock orcs face, he has always identified a weakness to take advantage of, and used it to lead his clan to victory. His strength, tenacity, and cunning are legendary among Draenor\u2019s orc warlords."

Blizzard has made the Blackhand comic available for download for free! The comic \u201cBlackhand,\u201d was written by Robert Brooks and illustrated by Alex Horley. If you're interested, you can learn more about Blackhand\u2019s story on the Characters of Warcraft: Blackhand page.

Commentaires

Commentaire de hstella

btw for 6.0 .Valor points gonna go away, what we gonna get in exchange?, there will be adicional ways to get lesser charms or just the existing?

Commentaire de Syward

on 2014-10-11T12:37:05-05:00

btw for 6.0 .Valor points gonna go away, what we gonna get in exchange?, there will be additional ways to get lesser charms or just the existing?\r\rOur VP and JP will be converted to gold at (I believe) 47 silver per point. Lesser Charms will be obtained in the same manner as they are now. The easiest being daily quests, Gulp Frogs and weekly chests on the Timeless Isle and are also a good source. You can also get them through Pet Battles.

Commentaire de purpuragallus

on 2014-10-11T13:21:29-05:00

I just like being able to buy full sets of heirlooms with my massive pile of gold.

Commentaire de Gigabear

on 2014-10-11T13:32:27-05:00

I find it amusing how close the acronym "CASC" is to the word Casket, as if Blizz is about to BURY WoW on Tuesday with this patch. I don't hold out much hope logging in until AT LEAST 16:00 PST.

Commentaire de Rorschachs

on 2014-10-11T13:38:21-05:00

Really appreciate the hard work you guys put into content like this.\rLoved every single episode of wowhead weekly and every other show you have done so far olivia; you are a great person for the community and please keep these coming for the next century <3

Commentaire de moosecat11

on 2014-10-11T14:03:13-05:00

I just like being able to buy full sets of heirlooms with my massive pile of gold.\r\rThis won't be possible until a future patch. Heirlooms from JP will be removed completely in 6.0.2, and available by other means (I assume gold) in a future patch AFTER WoD is launched. Until then, Champion Seals and Darkmoon Prize Tickets will be the only option. That's why I'm grinding JP the past couple weekends to get a few extra pieces before Tuesday.

Commentaire de perculia

on 2014-10-11T14:17:41-05:00

Yeah, no gold for heirlooms :( You can spend gold on ilvl 489 and ilvl 522 Pandaria epics, old Cataclysm tier for transmog, and things like the Dalaran mammoth in the patch though.

Commentaire de PragmaticSoul

on 2014-10-11T16:14:48-05:00

Yeah, no gold for heirlooms :( You can spend gold on ilvl 489 and ilvl 522 Pandaria epics, old Cataclysm tier for transmog, and things like the Dalaran mammoth in the patch though.\r\rThe Pandarian epics (from Shado-Pan Assault, correct?), will I need SPA rep greater than "neutral" to buy more than the necklace?

Commentaire de nightchopper

on 2014-10-11T17:06:28-05:00

WHOOOOO! gift me! go on!

Commentaire de Ishtarea

on 2014-10-11T17:27:11-05:00

I hope the heirloom thing is going to be real.

Commentaire de lokuv

on 2014-10-11T20:18:50-05:00

Yeah, no gold for heirlooms :( You can spend gold on ilvl 489 and ilvl 522 Pandaria epics, old Cataclysm tier for transmog, and things like the Dalaran mammoth in the patch though.\r\rThe Pandarian epics (from Shado-Pan Assault, correct?), will I need SPA rep greater than "neutral" to buy more than the necklace?\r\rThis question right here...

Commentaire de ZephyrAnjoyo

on 2014-10-11T20:46:41-05:00

I caught myself reading the comic backwards. Too used to reading manga...

Commentaire de SHO57

on 2014-10-11T21:01:03-05:00

I caught myself reading the comic backwards. Too used to reading manga...\r\r-1

Commentaire de sky3union

on 2014-10-11T21:40:57-05:00

Blackhand comic, seriously? I enjoyed reading it of course but is this really gonna be Blizz's standpoint about the alternate version of Blackhand? I mean come on, Blackhand was THE bad guy during early period of Warcraft and WoW refusing to accept Thrall as their new Warchief. Yielding Doomhammer was just over-doing it in my opinion : \/

Commentaire de Bornik

on 2014-10-11T22:08:14-05:00

I find it amusing how close the acronym "CASC" is to the word Casket, as if Blizz is about to BURY WoW on Tuesday with this patch. I don't hold out much hope logging in until AT LEAST 16:00 PST.\r\rIt's a 14 hour maintenance break apparently, so just give it time. Launches are always a bit shaky so just be patient :)

Commentaire de lankybrit

on 2014-10-11T23:22:00-05:00

Yeah, no gold for heirlooms :( You can spend gold on ilvl 489 and ilvl 522 Pandaria epics, old Cataclysm tier for transmog, and things like the Dalaran mammoth in the patch though.\r\rThe Pandarian epics (from Shado-Pan Assault, correct?), will I need SPA rep greater than "neutral" to buy more than the necklace?\r\rThis question right here...\r\rThey didn't say anything about change rep, just currency, So I think it's safe to assume that you'll still need the rep.

Commentaire de Cariier

on 2014-10-12T04:22:00-05:00

I really look foward to this Wednesday, finally content happens again xD

Commentaire de Arkaton

on 2014-10-12T04:45:19-05:00

It's cool!

Commentaire de Steaktao

on 2014-10-12T06:04:14-05:00

Blackhand comic, seriously? I enjoyed reading it of course but is this really gonna be Blizz's standpoint about the alternate version of Blackhand? I mean come on, Blackhand was THE bad guy during early period of Warcraft and WoW refusing to accept Thrall as their new Warchief. Yielding Doomhammer was just over-doing it in my opinion : \/\r\rNot the same Blackhand, that was his son Rend who was magically aged to be an adult. The original Blackhand from our timeline was killed by Orgrim Doomhammer during the events of Warcraft 2, so Thrall wasn't even born yet. The original Blackhand was Gul'dan's pawn, serving as a figurehead to be the warchief of the old horde.